Rushdie to highlight 2018 Mississippi Book Festival

April 16, 2018

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Indian novelist and essayist Salman Rushdie is among the authors invited to speak at this year’s Mississippi Book Festival.

Rushdie, whose novel “The Satanic Verses” provoked protests from Muslims around the world and death threats against him, is scheduled to visit Mississippi’s “literary lawn party” Aug. 18 at the state Capitol.

Organizers say Rushdie’s lecture will highlight his “own start in the writing game.”

Rushdie, who has lived in the United States since 2000, is a guest of the Eudora Welty Foundation, a festival partner. Rushdie, who won the Booker Prize for “Midnight’s Children,” delivered the inaugural Eudora Welty Lecture at the Washington National Cathedral in 2016.